Reflections on Motherhood

I’m sitting in my backyard listening to “Adagio for Strings” by Samuel Barber, getting inspired by the emotions this beautiful music brings out of me. I felt the same swelling of emotion the first time I held my son in my arms, and with Mother’s Day coming up this weekend, I can’t resist reflecting on our strange, wonderful, unbelievable journey together.

Motherhood. The dictionary defines it as “the state of being a mother.”

Example: “She juggles motherhood with a demanding career.”

Women become mothers and have to learn how to raise a little human into a good human while still juggling a work life. From one day to the next, how can we become so selfless and have so much love pour out of our hearts and into this beautiful new soul we’re responsible for?

My son is the most wonderful gift the universe has given me. In fact, having him saved my life, a careless life of partying, drugs and alcohol. From the moment I saw him and held him in my arms, I knew I had to leave all of that behind. He was the most important thing, my number one.

Motherhood is challenging, but it made me a warrior, and for that I am so grateful.

I have had many moments where I didn’t know how I was going to make it. From dealing with “the terrible twos” to the teen years—which both include many tantrums on my son’s part and a lot of patience on my part—there were times I felt so much desperation and anger that I wanted to pull every single hair off my head. But then my son looks at me and smiles, and miraculously every bad feeling disappears. Through it all, love remains.

Now, my son is sixteen and let me tell you it doesn’t get any easier to try to teach him values and show him what life is about, but these are the challenges of raising a teenager.

Teenager. My definition is “a person in his or her teens whose brain and body have been taken over by aliens.”

The word I use most these days is breathe, breathe, breathe.

As I say many times to my fellow mothers, and as I will say to any mom reading this, we are superheroes! Be proud to be a mother, and be proud of yourself and what you have accomplished. The working mom or the stay-at-home mom, it’s all the same. We all have our struggles, but we all make it work to the best of our abilities and that’s what truly matters.

It’s not about being the best mom. It’s about being the best mom you can be. Love and respect your child. Love and respect yourself. Happy Mother’s Day to all you beautiful superheroes.